Question

Can someone explain what Mary Ann Warren mean by these rights and given an example:

Strong Rights- capable of being moved by the force of reasoned  

Weak rights- capable of feeling pleasure and pain.

Weak Rights- Emotional connection to a moral agent.

Answer 1

Mary Anne Warren wrote a critique of Tom Regan’s argument in favour of a strong animals right position that the non-human animals are in not inferior to humans. According to the strong animal right position, normal, mature mammals are not only sentient but have other mental capacities. For Regan, This leads to the respect principle, which forbids us to treat beings who have inherent value as mere receptacles.

Warren however contested this view and she instead forwarded the weak animal rights theory. Her theory differentiates the rights of animals with varying strengths in accordance to their mental sophistication which also relates to their capacity for rational thinking or reason. Thus, all sentient animals have rights; however, the rights of those nonhuman animals are not as strong as those of humans. The more mentally sophisticated an animal is the greater would be it’s ability to suffer and the stronger are its rights. By this virtue, the rights given to sentient nonhuman animals can be violated at times when it would not be acceptable to violate human rights such as killing rodents can be justified if rodent infestation poses a threat to the crop produce and food supply of the people.